


Common Bond

by NoctuaFoxglove



Category: Magic: The Gathering
Genre: Gen, Rating May Change, Trans Jace
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-02-13 18:55:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 21,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12990408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoctuaFoxglove/pseuds/NoctuaFoxglove
Summary: After a summoning goes wrong, Jace finds himself confronting someone torn from her own place and time. Such an anomaly is a troubling sign of things to come that may threaten the planar stability of Ravnica. But Jace and this newcomer have some things in common, things they'd never thought they'd see in any other person. My first fanfiction in a very, very long time.





	1. Reality Shift

Solving puzzles never seemed to end well for Jace Beleren. 

Yes, every inch of his psyche sought out mysteries, pawing around in the aether looking for knots to untangle. Every time, it ended the same. Each time he unravelled one, he'd follow the loosened rope to an even bigger, incomprehensible mess. And more often than not, he was dragged deeper and deeper inside until there was no more end in sight, no light on either side. How many lives had his curiosity taken? How much responsibility had he mired himself in because of it?

But, like any good addiction, the sheer pleasure of uncovering that which wasn't meant to be known had him hooked. It was one of the few times he truly lived in the here and now. Not that he was ignorant of consequences, but that he absolutely had them all sorted out. Honest. 

There was perhaps no greater example of the price of his insatiable mind than the job he now held. One particular riddle had lead to his entire life becoming upheaved. He was now the Living Guildpact, the arbiter of all law on the plane of Ravnica. The convergence of leylines, the anchor on which the tumultuous guilds finally found peace. 

_ Supreme Lord Paper Pusher, more like, _ he thought to himself as he hunched over his desk, the surface of which was nearly invisible under a sea of yellowed sheets of paperwork. His mind wandered to those who coveted his position, the countless number of would-be tyrants that would gladly strangle him and take his place. It was some small measure of relief, imagining someone believing that such a lofty place would be anything other than herding a number of especially ornery cats. Desperately shoving paperwork behind books and potted plants, thinking that not being able to see it meant that it didn't exist. 

Niv-Mizzet, your request for a sigil change must be put on hold because our painters are overworked. Don't worry, House Dimir, you are absolutely a shadow of your former self and totally wield no real power. No, Selesnya Conclave, I decline your request to use my telepathy to truly "bring all of you together." Day in, day out, without end. 

It could have been worse. But it was also dreadfully boring. The work couldn't even have the decency to be hard. It was just time-consuming. 

Jace pushed the chair out, giving himself room to stand on legs that had been bent so long they stung in protest at being straightened again. It wasn't as if it was against the law for him to leave his post for a short time, as for the moment there was a greater cause. One that, if left unfulfilled, could jeopardize the plane's stability and leave their political center incapacitated. 

He tilted the enormous porcelain mug that rested on the desk towards himself, empty except for a tiny dribble of brown liquid that pooled in the bottom. 

The Guildpact needed more coffee. 

Still, it wasn't proper procedure to just leave his desk unattended without alerting anyone. But Jace long since found a way around that. A quick burst of mana and an arcane shimmer of his eyes brought to life a perfect replica of himself seated at his desk, pen in hand as he signed sheet after sheet. There. Now he could safely leave, though the lack of a full mug of coffee wouldn't leave anyone fooled for long. 

It hardly mattered, as he wound his way out of his office and towards the place that he kept his coffee press, excited enough to almost smell the grounds. Before he could reach his destination, he heard someone coming. Growing steadily louder was the sound of clanking armor, and even before its wearer showed her face, Jace could already feel the weight of her presence. 

Lavinia.

He still couldn't wrap his head around how she moved so easily in the heavy, silvery armor that covered much of her body, but she strode down the hall with an intense sense of purpose. Her hawkish eyes turned towards him, narrowed slightly as they always were, and Jace couldn't help himself but to shrink slightly underneath their intense, judgmental gaze. She came to a stop in front of him, but rocked slightly on her toes as if ready to spring forward. Something was going on.

"Guildpact," she regarded simply, nodding her head. Jace became a hair less tense. It could be very difficult to tell exactly what the target of her sternness was, but it seemed that this time, it wasn't him.

"Uh, good day, Lavinia," Jace put on his best authoritative voice. He hadn't quite mastered it, and she could tell, the corners of her lips flickering slightly, "Is everything well?" 

"I don't have much time to talk," she said, "I've gotten reports that there was an illegal duel arranged in this district. I'm going to intercept before it begins." 

A duel? It would certainly be the most exciting thing that had happened here in a while. No doubt young wizards, just discovering how to use their powers for the first time. But without the wisdom to keep their mouths shut about how they were going to show off what they were capable of. 

Jace sighed. Maybe he'd never been in the exact same position. But in spirit, he knew how it was. 

"I'd like to accompany you on this arrest," Jace said, the words spilling out before he could really stop them. Lavinia's eyes widened, those harsh eyebrows raised.

"What for?" She asked, equal parts stern and curious. Jace knew the real answer, that if he had to look over one more piece of paperwork today without a break he would absolutely lose his mind. But something told him Lavinia may not be satisfied with that answer. 

“I have… experience with summoning and magic duels. Dealing with them, I mean.” It was pretty flimsy, but technically true, “I could advise, at the very least.”

Luckily for him, time was on his side. She sighed, having run out of time to argue with him. 

"Fine," she relented, "I trust your reasoning. But stay behind me. This may get dangerous." Jace was only too willing to agree, and pulled his hood over his head. The two emerged into the streets of the Tenth District, walking quickly towards the scene of the future crime.

Neither of them knew entirely what to expect when they reached their destination, but it seemed that the young upstarts they had come to intercept had gotten an early start. Two young men, dressed in the gaudy colors of the Ravnican middle class, were still crackling with the aftershocks of fading mana. And both stood, mouths agape, at what their summoning had brought them. 

It was a human, standing tall in shining plates of armor accented with red and yellow. The only skin that could be seen was a harsh expression, downturned eyebrows on a feminine face that rested under a plumed helmet. Her dark eyes darted back and forth as she took in her new, confusing surroundings. People wearing strange clothes. Structures that jutted up into the sky, higher than any of the mountains and hills of her home. Where was she?

"Wh-... what is this?" One of them shouted at the other. "You said you were summoning a dragon!"

"Don't look at me! You did this! You messed me up!"

Before the first mage could retort, the armored woman between them erupted into shouts in some language none present could understand. From her scabbard at her waist she drew an enormous sword, turning her fierce gaze towards her supposed summoner. But before she could bring it down onto his head, her eyes flickered with a familiar blue light. Her body abruptly slumped and she stumbled, taking a few shaking steps forward before falling heavily to the ground in a crash of metal, unconscious.

Jace lowered his hand, his eyes returning to their normal, non-glowing state. A simple sleeping spell had averted a murder. With the immediate danger cleared, Lavinia rounded up the panicking mages and began questioning them. For Jace, however, the wheels in his mind were turning. His eyes lingered on the woman. No one on Ravnica spoke that language, and no one wore that kind of armor. Whoever she was, it was very likely she came from somewhere very, very far away.

_ Was she a Planeswalker _ , he immediately thought. The timing was far too convenient. What were the odds that a planeswalker would show up the very instant that a summoning occurred? But stranger things have happened. 

Either way, he had to know more about her. And that would mean…

He stepped up behind Lavinia, who still went about her duties, interrogating the young men.

"...You are aware that summoning sentient creatures is against the law, correct?" She said, in that tone that made the man before her lose an inch of height. 

"H-honest. It was an accident. I was trying to summon a dr-...drake!"

Lavinia raised a thin, harshly-arched eyebrow. 

"A drake." She said flatly. "Either way, the both of you are detained for illegal dueling. You are both to come with me." As she began to cuff the two, she glanced over at Jace, who now kneeled next to the prone woman, examining her closely, running his hands over the exotic armor.

He had to speak up, before anyone would threaten to unsummon her and take away his chance to learn more. 

"Guildpact?" Lavinia asked.

"...Let me take her," he said softly, "I need to, uh... I need to do some examinations." 

Lavinia didn't bother to argue, and simply nodded. 

"Fair enough," she said, "Just be careful. Whatever they summoned, she seems aggressive. If you need any assistance, then contact us immediately." 

"I will. For now, I have this under control." Jace said, and with that Lavinia took her leave with the two detained mages in tow. 

Jace closed his eyes, a glow flickering from underneath his eyelids as he sent out a silent, psychic call to a close friend, a fellow Planeswalker and someone physically strong enough to help him with what would likely be a difficult task. But first, he’d need help getting this woman back to his estate. 


	2. Kindred Discovery

Gradually, the fog started to lift. She opened her eyes to a world that was still blurry and indistinct. Wherever it was that she'd woken to, she could not see the open sky, only an arched roof overhead, light streaming through tall windows, the only sign of sunlight. More details revealed themselves as her vision cleared further. She'd never seen a structure as large and permanent as this, and even this large room's thick stone walls felt crushing.

She had been seated in some stiff, carved wooden chair, and true to her lightning instincts her first action of consciousness was to grope at her side, to unhilt her sword and demand answers from... Where was her sword? She swung her head in every direction, but the weapon was out of her grasp and sight. Without it, she may as well have been completely naked. She would have been just as vulnerable.

No. She would not allow herself to be some hapless prisoner. If she had to escape from the clutches of her captors and return to the clan she ruled, then she would die trying if she had to. Before she could stand to her feet, however, two hands came down onto her shoulders. They held her in place with an impressive amount of strength and even more impressive restraint, considering the enormous, muscled arms that they were attached to. In her vulnerable state, they could have easily snapped her neck. But this hold was meant to keep her still, and nothing more.

Disarmed and at the mercy of whoever had their hands on her, her attention turned to the figure before her that revealed himself. He sat at the table before her, leaned forward on his elbows and holding his round face in his hands. Some tiny man in a ridiculous-looking blue cloak, a useless breastplate, and markings that streaked from his right eye like tears. If such a sad little specimen thought that he could intimidate her, he was sadly mistaken. But she could certainly turn the tides on him.

She leaned forward, her dark eyes fierce, making contact with the man's blue. Her glare stabbed into the man's head, and she took great delight when he flinched, but unfortunately he still seemed undaunted. She bore down harder, barking demands at him just as she would any of her shoulders, in search of answers. But no matter how hard she pounded away in her interrogation, he just stared at her with a wide-eyed bewilderment. A huntbeast staring down an arrow. Satisfying, but useless.

"Uhm. This might be a bit of a problem," came a voice from behind her, the owner of the hands that held her down. She couldn't comprehend the words, but she was surprised to find his tone concerned, not aggressive. The man in blue broke eye contact with her, running his hand over his forehead, his eyes closed tightly in thought and from having to bear the brunt of her verbal assault.

"I... Here. If we're going to learn anything about her, we're going to have to communicate." He finally spoke up, "I don't think I've ever done this before, but in theory it should work..." From behind his eyelids a startling blue glow flared, "Keep her still. This might be kind of unpleasant. I'm sorry in advance." He said to her, even though he knew she couldn't understand him yet.

He reached out towards her, his fingertips trailing some kind of blue flame, and rested them onto her forehead. Before she could struggle, though, she felt those fingertips pierce through into her mind. The stranger did his best to be gentle as he rearranged her memories, making adjustments as easily and carefully as he would sort books in his library. But he knew there was no way to make the rush of knowledge any more pleasant. Her eyes glazed over, rolling up slightly as the torrent of new information forced its way into her brain.

The man in blue made a quick check to make sure that he hadn't caused any damage, and withdrew, leaving her once again alone in her own head. She groaned, feeling a dull ache in her skull. Whatever the man had done to her, it clearly wasn't fatal, or even disruptive. Why had he spared her life when he had her captive?

"That should have done it," the man in blue said, and Alesha jolted back to alertness when she realized that she understood the words that he spoke. His lips turned up slightly when he saw her look up at him once more, "Going to assume that means it worked. You can understand me now, can't you? You should be able to answer, as well."

She opened her mouth and the words spilled out. Her mouth contorted in strange ways, speaking some tongue she'd never heard before today, but came just as naturally as her own. No time to stop and question it.

"You are to release me this second!" she shouted leaning forward even as the hands tensed into her shoulders, "I do not know who you are, or what you have done, but the fury of the Mardu Horde will come down upon your head before you can take another sorry breath if you do not explain where I am this instant!"

The man in blue blinked.

"...Yes. I was getting to an explanation." he said through a heavy exhale, "Believe me when I say neither of us have any interest in hurting you. We're just as confused as you are in how you got here."

"Go on," she snarled, "I will not sit here and be lied to! If you have me captured, release me or kill me!"

"You are not our captive," the voice behind her spoke once more, his tone just as strong as his body, but warm and comforting. He loosened the pressure from his hands, and let her shoulders go, which drew a concerned glance from the man in blue. "I understand that things have to be very confusing for you right now. We brought you here so that we can help you."

A show of mercy. And for the first time in recent memory, she dropped her guard. Her body drooped, her eyes lingering on the table.

The man in blue, startled that the large man's gambit had worked, quickly regained his composure, sitting up a little straighter in his chair.

"Alright. With all that worked out, now we can get somewhere. Let's start with your name." he said. She looked upwards, making eye contact that the man in blue still found dizzying. 

"I am Alesha, Who Smiles At Death. Khan of the Mardu Horde." she answered, pride creeping back into her voice as she spoke her title.

"That's... quite a name," the man in blue drew a hissing breath through his nose, "I'm Jace Beleren... uh, Living Guildpact. I am here, anyway." If they were trading titles, then he could at least add his own to the mix.

"Gideon Jura," the voice behind her rumbled jovially, "It's nice to meet you, Alesha."

Alesha turned to look at Gideon and was met by an enormous, dusky-skinned man in bright silvery armor. But his face matched his voice, with warm eyes and a trustworthy smile. Just by looking at him, she could tell this man was a leader. Of what, she couldn't know yet.

"Mmph." She grunted. Whether or not they intended to harm her in the end, the lack of leverage and power she held still made her uneasy.

"Alright. With the pleasantries out of the way," Jace said hastily, "We can start trying to get to the bottom of this. You said that you were a... Khan? I'm going to assume that's some kind of figure of authority."

Alesha nodded, flashing a toothy grin, "The youngest Khan the Mardu people have ever known. Warlord of a force that is the envy and terror of all Tarkir." She held her head a bit higher.

Jace raised an eyebrow. He recognized the name of that place, Tarkir, though he had never been there. It was clear from Alesha's words that she had come from another plane. Not that he hadn't expected it, but it was still nice to have confirmation. They were getting somewhere.

"That's very impressive," he said, even though he barely understood any words of her sentence outside of 'Tarkir,' but it was clear she was proud of it. "Now, if you could, describe for me what happened just before you appeared here, if you remember?"

"I was on my horse," she said slowly, thinking carefully, "Escorted by two of my best soldiers, my bodyguards. They... Where are they? Are they here?" She rose to her feet, but her posture wasn't aggressive, palms open and her head sweeping back and forth around the room frantically, "Were they also brought here?"

Gideon stepped closer to her, resting that big hand on her shoulder. Not a threat, but a reassurance.

"You were the only one there, where Jace found you," he said calmly, "I'm sorry."

Alesha spun around to look at him and found no dishonesty in his eyes, only the same sincerity she'd seen and felt before. She deflated, and resigned herself back into the chair. She knew, before she had made that last charge towards the fate of her clan, that she had given them the option to follow her or not.

It seems as though they had made their decision. It was their choice. But in this strange place, even the gruff bluntness of Jagun Wingmate would have been appreciated. Something, anything at all, that was familiar.

She turned her eyes back towards Jace. His eyebrows turned up slightly in sympathy, but his expression was as hungry for more knowledge as it had ever been.

"If you need a second..." he started, but Alesha raised her hand towards him.

"No, it's alright," she said, "I will finish my story." She took a deep breath, and continued. "We had just left a meeting of all the Khans of Tarkir, trying to find a solution to the dragon tempests that threatened to snuff out our people. Whether or not we should put an end to the spirit dragon, Ugin..."

The mention of that name made Jace sigh heavily. He knew only too well who Ugin was, and wasn't exactly willing to relive the memories of dealing with the dragon. If having to interrogate Ugin about where Alesha came from could be avoided, he very much wanted to do so. The more he thought on this, however, the more something didn't add up. Why would the humans of that plane even think about killing Ugin when he had been so integral to upholding the stability of the Multiverse and, more importantly, was uninvolved with the plight of mortals to the point of being infuriating?

"...But we were ambushed," Alesha was still speaking, and Jace listening voraciously, "One of the Khans had betrayed us, and two dragons and their terrible broods descended on the gathering. I narrowly escaped, but..." she shook her head, "But it was clear that everything had been lost. The clans would have to adapt or die."

This was it. It had to be it, Jace thought. He leaned forward slightly towards her, palms flat on the table.

"And that's the moment you disappeared, right? And showed up here?"

Much to his disappointment, Alesha shook her head once more.

"I was nearly back to my camp by then. It was within my sight when I just... vanished and appeared in this place."

Jace nearly fell over onto his face. So close, and yet it had been yanked from his grasp once more. The chances of Alesha being a planeswalker were growing slimmer. But there was one way to be sure.

"...Try to return there." he said bluntly, in a way that even startled Gideon.

"What?" Alesha looked at him as if he'd started spitting lightning.

"Try to return to Tarkir. From right here." He insisted.

"Jace, I don't think-" Gideon started.

"No, this will prove it or not. If you walked here, you should just be able to walk back. Just concentrate, and you'll appear there. The spark will guide you."

"What are you talking about? What spark?" Alesha was becoming increasingly distressed at Jace's obsessed stare. "I can't go anywhere. If I could, do you think I would have just stayed here and not immediately returned to my people?"

Jace's senses started to return to him. No, there was no use in pushing any further. That trail was dead. She wasn't a planeswalker. And so the mystery became even more tangled.

"Nevermind," he said, avoiding eye contact, "I'm sorry, I just thought... I was mistaken. I didn't mean to upset you."

"It's... alright." Alesha said, even though she wasn't entirely convinced that it was.

Jace ran a hand through his hair, eyes turning up towards the ceiling in frustration. He was well aware that there was one more option to try to solve this puzzle, though he'd wanted to avoid it given Alesha's distress. But if he wanted any hope of trying to get her home, find out why this had happened, he had no choice.

His eyes flickered into a steady blue glow, and he reached his mind out to hers. His previous excursion here proved to him that she'd never confronted a telepath before. Most people hadn't, but it was still fortunate. He wouldn't be here for long, anyway. If he was to go to Tarkir himself, he would need some kind of lead.

Alesha's mind was just as fierce and confident as the woman herself, with corridors of dusty stone, the roar of battle cries, the drum of hoofbeats, the snap of bowstrings and the clash of steel underlying every memory. It was simple, to walk backwards in chronological order, to find the site of the Khan's meeting. A monastery atop a snowy mountain, a place that Alesha didn't have much personal fondness for. But when he caught the sight of hundreds- no, thousands of scrolls, tucked away in intricately-painted shelves, he got the feeling that perhaps his own opinion would be quite different.

Wherever this was, even Alesha knew it to be the center of information and record-keeping of Tarkir. There was no point in trying to track the ever-traveling Mardu. If he wanted to learn more about anything relating to the plane, this is the place he would have to go.

That was what he needed, and he left that memory behind just as he saw the two dark, winged figures sweep into view. The dragons, one thick-bodied with poison-green scales and the other long and sweeping, more like a great red and white bird. He looked around briefly for any sign of Ugin, but it was obvious that Alesha knew far less about that dragon than he himself did, only knowing about him from the hearsay of the other Khans. Fruitless.

Before he withdrew entirely, though, something just out of sight glittered, down one of the sandstone halls of Alesha's mind. A memory, powerful and radiant. Even now, he could feel her opening it like a precious scroll, drawing from its heat and light to give her strength, even as she was trapped far outside of her comfort zone.

He couldn't help himself, and brushed his metaphorical fingers against it.

_There she stood, the horde she would one day rule looking at her. Her pulse raced, sweat pouring down her body in those aching few seconds before her Khan stood, and announced her name._

_Hundreds of fists and steely weapons that glittered in the beating sun thrust into the air as the horde echoed her name._

_The name that she had chosen for her deeds. Carrying on her grandmother's spirit, and asserting herself as the woman she knew she had always been. She had opened herself, and they had accepted her._

Jace jolted, the realization of what this meant hitting him like a weight in his chest. Now that he knew, there was something else to her mind that he could feel acutely. In her thoughts and memories, buried deep but still present, was an incessant itch like an insect underneath her skin. A disconnect between her body and her mind, the sense that something was wrong.

It was a feeling he was well acquainted with. Too well. In the opposite direction, maybe. But in spirit, it was the same.

He had to withdraw, and tried to do it as gently as he could, but his own vision returned to him quickly enough to give him vertigo. Reaching up to rub at his forehead, he stared through his fingers to see Alesha, who was narrowing her eyes at him.

"What did you do?" she asked warily.

"Nngh... Nothing. Don't worry about it." he answered. He pulled his hood over his head, a stupid gesture. One here already knew, and the other wouldn't care, but being confronted with this uncomfortable truth so abruptly left him feeling vulnerable all the same, "I just... have a lot of thinking to do, I guess. And I imagine you have a lot of adjusting, too."

Gideon frowned slightly, noticing the change in Jace's demeanor after he had read Alesha's mind. He couldn't help but wonder and worry over what he had found, but for the moment it wasn't his place to pry.

"Here," Gideon offered, "I think Jace might need a moment. We'll do what we can to help you, Alesha, but it might take a while. In the meantime, how about we get you something to eat and find somewhere to rest. How does that sound?"

There was that smile again, Alesha thought. But she didn't need that much to convince her. When had she last eaten? It felt like an eternity, and only now did she realize how much her limbs were weighed down by hunger and exhaustion.

She nodded to him. Even the fierce Mardu warrior had to concede.

"Yes. I'd appreciate that. Thank you."

Gideon's smile widened, and he clapped his hand down on her shoulder in a way that even brought a matching expression to her own face. He gave a wave to Jace and the two turned, moving to leave the sanctum.

"I know this lovely place down the street. I don't know what kind of food they have on Tarkir, but I think that you'll like this..."

Jace simply watched them go, staring at Alesha's back until she was out of sight. He let out a deeply-held breath, and slumped forward onto his hands. It was an epiphany, but it didn't comfort him or bring wonder like one. But three words rushed through his thoughts, over and over.

_I'm not alone._


	3. Wonder

The pair received some very strange looks as they walked down the road.

Though Alesha had taken off her armor before she'd left Jace's home, she still wore roughly-stitched underclothing in patterns that stood out from the Ravnican populace. More concerning were her eyes, ever narrowed as if she dared the passerby to challenge her. To her delight, some did indeed back down, though others glared back.

Gideon did his best to disarm any situation with that winning smile of his, but it became apparent that this could be a problem. The last thing that she needed was to immediately become known as a troublemaker, or, Gods forbid, draw the attention of the authorities. He rest his hand on Alesha's shoulder.

"I understand that this must be very different for you," he said, "But you can loosen your guard. You're under no threat here."

Alesha huffed heavily through her nose, turning those fierce eyes towards Gideon.

"How can any of you be so comfortable around so many strange people?" she growled, "It's suffocating. They have us outnumbered. If they wanted, they could-"

"They're like us," Gideon answered calmly, "They simply want to go about their business. In a large city like this, causing a commotion in the streets just makes life harder for everyone. Which is why it's important to stay calm and keep to yourself, for the most part."

"Hm." Alesha gave it a try, trying to push the crushing pressure of so many unknowns out of her head. She turned her gaze straight forward, and watched as the people passed by without incident. Though she couldn't completely stop flinching at the constant motion in her peripheral vision, her body gradually grew less tense.

"There. Just like that," Gideon pat her shoulder, "Doesn't that feel better?"

"...It does," Alesha had to admit. Even a glance overhead revealed nothing but the towering buildings above her like mountains, and the fluttering of small, harmless birds. She still didn't like the hidden overhangs of those spires, the shadows they cast that could hide all sorts of dangers. But the people here were at peace, and Gideon strode through the streets with her in full confidence. This was a world where people were not constantly besieged by dragons. That was reassuring, but alien.

It was the smell of the place that hit her first, of bread and cooked meat and unknown spices permeating down the street. Her stomach groaned in response, loudly enough that it even drew Gideon's attention over the din of the crowd. He looked at her and laughed a little.

"That hungry, huh?" he said, "Don't worry. We're here." Gideon opened the door in front of them, a small bell chiming over their heads. The smell of food here was overwhelming, and soon the sight of it was as well. Glass cases full of all sorts of prepared foods in shapes she'd never seen before, twisted artfully in light, flaky bread. What an odd place this was, where food was not merely survival, but decoration. And it just made it all the more alluring. It looked close enough to touch, close enough to eat, but stood there, taunting her hunger. Cruel, how this city had such abundance but kept it locked away!

The smooth-faced elf woman behind the counter looked up, smiling as she greeted her customers. And then yelped at the sight of a tall young woman attempting to climb over the cases, looking desperately for a way in so she could pilfer her prizes.

Gideon acted quickly, grabbing Alesha by her waist and pulling her back up to her feet. Her instincts triggered, she flailed in his grasp, doing everything in her power to try to escape her attacker. But Gideon was not one to lose his composure in a tense situation.

"Alesha." he said, calmly but firmly.

It snapped her back to reality, and she stared at him, wide-eyed and blinking a few times.

"...What?"

"You can't do that."

"Do what?"

"You can't just take things from the shelves."

"Then why would they put them there?" she protested.

"Just let me show you," Gideon answered, and turned to the still-dumbstruck elf shopkeeper. Alesha watched in amazement as he spoke to her, not taking, but asking for a few of the meaty pastries in the bottom left corner of the case. The woman seemed eager to comply with this request, gently scooping up three of them and placing them into a small paper sack. She handed them over to Gideon, who responded by pulling a few small bits of metal from a pouch around his waist, placing them gently into the woman's hand. She thanked him, and he her in return.

No hunting, no pillaging, no cooking. Acquiring food in this place was impossibly easy. No wonder the people here feared nothing!

With the food acquired, Gideon turned to leave with Alesha in tow, something the elf seemed quite grateful for. Despite herself, Alesha's face burned.

"I..." she began, "I'm sorry if I acted out of line." she said, quietly. A rough admission to a new superior. There was something that wrenched in her chest, that she was once again reduced to some insolent young warrior acting under someone else.

Gideon shrugged, "I wouldn't worry about it too much. The important thing is that you're learning."

"Mmh."

The two walked down the street quietly, returning back to Jace's estate. Alesha's mind was eased slightly by the promise of food, but it still whirled, trying to put pieces together, grasp onto some small amount of sense. She couldn't help but stare down at the bag in Gideon's hand, and wonder where, in a world that seemed to have no wilds, who did the hunting and where. How are so many people kept fed and content?

She opened her mouth to ask, but stopped. Somehow she got the sense that she didn't really want to know the answer.

They arrived shortly afterwards, entering back into the tight space of the estate and weaving through hallways back to the library. Alesha frowned slightly, realizing that this choking space was the closest thing to a home she may have from now on. Jace still sat at the long table, hood still pulled up, though the pen in his hand and the parchment he was furiously scribbling on provided some evidence that he had gotten up at some point.

Gideon reached into the bag, pulling out a pastry and placing it into Alesha's hands. She stared at it warily, but Gideon just smiled at her.

"You don't have to be afraid of it. It's good, trust me." he said, "Make yourself at home here." Alesha couldn't help herself, and gave a short, huffing laugh in response before taking a large, ungraceful bite through bread and meat. It was real, alright. Blissfully real, and she buried herself into it, groaning in relief.

Leaving her to sate herself, Gideon moved over to Jace, pulling another from it and setting it in front of him. Jace's eyes turned up towards it, staring at it across the table. It was always nearly impossible to tell whether he was hungry or not, he had gotten so good at suppressing his needs.

"Thank you." he muttered.

"When was the last time you've eaten?" Gideon asked.

Jace raised his shoulders, "Wasn't that long ago. I don't think."

Gideon shook his head with a weary little smile. "You have to sometime."

"I'm fine."

Removing the last one, Gideon set the bag to the side. He tried to glance at what Jace had been writing down, but the mind mage still sat hunched over the parchment.

"You seem a bit uptight," Gideon said, "Moreso than usual."

"I'm _fine._ " Jace repeated. Gideon said nothing in response, instead simply continuing to look at him with that concerned glance, eyebrows slightly upturned. Jace sighed, and briefly wondered to himself if the big man had some sort of mind magic of his own that he couldn't fathom, with the way he could break down barriers.

"Alright," Jace relented, "I guess I'm just thinking too much again. Some things are... bothering me. As usual." He tried to sink deeper into his cloak.

"Things...? You mean..." Gideon gestured slightly over the length of Jace's body.

Jace nodded, "I get it. I have more important things to worry about right now. But it always has a way of sneaking up on me. And always at the worst times." He ran a hand through his hair, making some of it stick up from the brim of the hood. "I... should be in so much more control of myself than this."

"Mmh," Gideon nodded his head thoughtfully in return, "It's something that means a lot to you. It's natural to be concerned about it, Jace."

"But now?" Jace replied, "Now, when I have..." he swept his hands across his notes, "All this to concentrate on? It's ridiculous. It shouldn't even be like this." He sunk down onto his hands, staring a hole through the paper. "I wish that something, anything, could just be right for once."

Gideon was about ready to touch Jace's shoulder, rub his back comfortingly. But just seeing his raised hand made Jace withdraw further. He dropped it back down to the table, settling for nudging the food a little closer to Jace, a more acceptable display of reassurance.

"I wish it could be, too," Gideon said softly, "But just know that, no matter what, we're here for you. I know who you are."

Jace's blue eyes flicked up from underneath his hood. The corners of his lips turned up into what might have been a small, broken smile.

"Thanks." he said, almost a whisper.  He finally relented, and reached out to take the pastry, sitting up straight enough to not shower his work in crumbs.

"...Did something happen?" Gideon asked, idly stroking his beard in thought, “When you read Alesha's mind?"

"Mmph?" Jace grunted through a mouthful of bread.

"I'm just wondering, because that's when you started to become uncomfortable. Was everything alright?"

Jace swallowed heavily, and hid deeper into his hood to try to cover how much the question had blanched his face. Regardless of whether or not Gideon would care, it wasn't his place to give away Alesha's secrets. If she wished to reveal it, she would have to be the one to do it. Not him.

He coughed, "Uh, no. Not really. Just happens randomly, you know? Heh heh..." Without missing a beat, he began to change the subject, turning his gaze back towards the parchment, on which there were rough sketches of the places he had pulled from Alesha's memories, "So I've taken some notes based on what I found, either way. In Tarkir's mountains there's a monastery that holds the records of the entire plane's history, at least as far as Alesha knows. If I can find it, and Alesha has personally been there herself so it shouldn't be too hard, then we might get a little closer to finding out just how she got here and what it means."

Gideon suspected Jace wasn't giving him the entire truth, but as before he dismissed it. If Jace didn't feel comfortable talking about it, that was fair enough. The sketches were very detailed, carefully recreated from Jace's mind to his hands. The telepath had quite a talent for holding onto images vividly, though perhaps illusionary references weren't out of the question. The notes, barely legible chicken scratchings, were much less graceful.

"So you're going to Tarkir."

"Yes."

"Alone?"

Jace shrugged, "I know where I'm going. And I can defend myself. You know that. Besides, someone has to stay here with Alesha, since she apparently can't come with me."

"Mmh." Gideon frowned, but Jace was right. He considered for a moment what would have happened at the bakery had it been Jace there instead of himself. "Alright. But don't be afraid to get help if you need it, alright?"

"I know, I know." Jace said, waving his hand a little, "If everything goes well it'll be a pretty quick and painless trip. I have a good idea of what to expect." He stood up and started to carefully fold his notes. "I'll do a little preparation and then I'll be off."

"Be careful." Gideon said firmly, voice full of concern. Jace met his eyes for a fleeting moment, long enough to try to reassure him, though prolonged contact burned.

"I will." He answered. He nodded, and tucked the notes away in a pocket in his cloak. Once he gathered his things, he vanished from Ravnica in a burst of phantom rain and sea spray that disappeared before it splashed on the floor.


	4. Write Into Being

Footsteps and water droplets emerged from the Blind Eternities, kicking up a cloud of the very real soil of Tarkir. Though Jace had something of an idea of what to expect, from what little he knew of the plane, there was still no substitute for firsthand knowledge. He took a moment to gather his bearings, taking a look around at his surroundings. 

These were not the dusty steppes that Alesha had known. Just as well, as he'd hoped to land closer to the location of the monastery instead of getting lost in endless desert. He stood in an enormous valley, lush green with plant life. A few huts scattered around the edges of increasingly-high hills, as well as the etchings of agriculture that traced lines in the verdant expanse were proof that some civilization existed here, but compared to the crowding of Ravnica, this place may as well have been barren. A river, glittering and pristine, cut a path through the grass, stretching on into the horizon.

His eyes turned upwards, following the rolling hills that gradually rose into rocky crags and snowy peaks, jutting into the vast blue sky. He had to squint, but atop the tallest mountain sat a tiny square speck of red and white and yellow. A building, barely recognizable as so. His target, probably. 

As much as it would have been easy and satisfying to grow frustrated at this fact, it really was to be expected. Landing in an exact location after planeswalking was never a reliable thing. He adjusted the heavy bag at his back, took a deep breath, and started walking, idly watching his goal. Occasionally something would flit around it, shadowed against the sky. Like a bird, but far too large. Right, the dragons. It didn't give him much peace, but something so large would have a very difficult time being stealthy, with all this open air. A quick tap into the mana revealed that the leylines of this plane were healthy and vibrant. Good. It meant that though he was minimally-armed, he was far from defenseless. 

A few hours passed quietly, and Jace counted his blessings that the trip, so far, had been quiet and peaceful. Travelling alone was not something he minded so much, especially when he had so many things to mull over. It was a shame, then, that so many pieces were missing. Just enough missing that he couldn't make out the full picture just yet. It was enough to almost make him forget an even more insurmountable task that lay ahead of him; exactly how he was going to climb what looked to be an unforgiving, steep mountain with no guide and no equipment. Would it even be possible? Going back to Ravnica and regrouping wouldn't be such a bad thing, perhaps, but-

Before he could weigh his options, something broke the silence. A loud roar that echoed across the rocks and mountainsides like thunder. The first sign of active life larger than a deer or squirrel he'd heard since arriving to this plane, and one he'd very much wanted to avoid. His eyes swept across the sky until he pinpointed the source of the noise. A black speck that grew closer and closer with every passing second. 

Cloaking himself in blue mana, he shimmered for a moment before disappearing into the surrounding grass, trying to back away slowly towards somewhere to hide, avoiding disturbing the surrounding plants too much. But the black dot continued its descent, and Jace could soon make its details out clearly. A dragon, its massive head covered in pointed, back-swept scales. On its back were leathery wings that somehow supported a stocky, short-legged body gracefully through the air. Its eyes glowed like two lit coals embedded in its face. Most startlingly of all, this particular dragon wasn't a stranger.

Sarkhan Vol. Nicol Bolas's' rabid attack dog and one of the many planeswalkers the elder dragon had taken on as an errand boy. 

Jace remained perfectly silent, but his mind exploded with a number of colorful swears. Just being accosted a dragon would have been far too much luck for him. No, it had to be a dragon he knew, and one that would certainly kill him if he couldn't hide immediately. His heart pounded in his chest until he could hear it in his ears. What was he doing here? What did this mean? Had Bolas tracked Jace to this plane, and if he tried to retreat would he be followed? Too many things to consider, and the rush left him standing, cloaked but perfectly still, like a rabbit staring down the jaws of a wolf. 

The dragon landed heavily on his enormous paws, and his nostrils flared as he sniffed the air, smoke unfurling from them every time he exhaled. His tail flicked behind him as his big head swung back and forth like a tracking hound. Wonderful. The dragon would sniff him out in a second, and then it would all be over. But before he decided to merely cut his losses and planeswalk away, he spotted something perched on the dragon's shoulders. A woman dressed in blue silks and golden armor, long black hair framing a round, pale face. 

The dragon's head was close enough to Jace that he could feel and smell his sulphurous breath against his skin. But instead of opening those jaws and bringing them down, he rose to his full height again. He turned those blazing eyes towards the woman on his back and growled thoughtfully, and then sat patiently on his haunches while she climbed down from between his wings. 

"You can come out," the woman spoke, her voice measured, "We don't mean you any harm." 

Jace swallowed, keeping the illusion cloaked around his body as he took a moment to skim the minds of those who had him cornered, groping around for their true intentions in a clumsy, panicked manner. Immediately he was greeted by a surprising quietness. The last time he'd encountered Sarkhan, his mind was a twisted mess of conflicting voices and mad gibberings. But what Jace found now was focused and even enthusiastic, if a bit suspicious at the sight of the mind mage. The woman's mind, however, was more beautifully organized than any he had ever seen, with not a single thought or action out of place. It was a mind he so badly wanted to dive more deeply into, but now wasn't the time.

Finding no dishonesty in her words, Jace straightened up into a more dignified posture before letting the mana slip away and allowing himself to be seen once more. 

The woman stepped towards him, looking him over everywhere but his eyes, much to Jace's relief. She blinked, and tilted her head curiously. 

"I am Narset," she said, in a steady, rehearsed tone, placing a hand on her chest, "Jace Beleren? I'm correct in assuming that's your name?" she leaned slightly closer to him, tracing her gaze over the patterns on his clothing. 

"Uhm, yes," Jace answered, "How did you know that?" 

"I've never seen you, but I've heard of you. My friend Tamiyo knows you." She rest her hand on the clasp of his cloak. "A mind mage and planeswalker that dresses entirely in blue. It would be hard to mistake you for anyone else." 

"Oh. I guess so, huh? What exactly did she say about me?" Jace scratched at the back of his head, his hood falling down onto his shoulders. 

"Sarkhan saw you, wandering through the valley while we were flying," she continued directly off the heel of Jace's words, "He recognized you, and..." she paused, and looked at Jace, shaking her head as if she were trying to change her train of thought, "Tamiyo told me of what happened on Innistrad recently and how you had uncovered its secrets, even as the plane was falling apart. Though I certainly hope Tarkir is not under a similar danger." 

Jace raised his hands, "Oh, no, no, nothing like that. I just came here looking for some answers, I guess. I need to learn some things about this plane and its history." 

The words lit a fire behind Narset's eyes and she smiled wide. Her hands trembled slightly. 

"So you have also come seeking knowledge!" she chirped, "That is exactly what I've been doing!"

The excitement was contagious, especially coming from such an understandable source. He was quickly coming to the conclusion that he liked Narset. A lot. 

"Yes!" he answered, "And from what I understand, the best source of knowledge is up there," he gestured towards the peak of the mountain, "In that monastery. Am I correct?"

Narset's smile flickered, her eyes squinting slightly as she tried to pick the correct words from her thoughts. 

"Yes, and no." she said carefully, "It would depend on what you're looking for exactly, I suppose. The Ojutai have a wealth of knowledge, it's true. But they don't hold the whole story. That... that rests with us." 

"What, exactly, are you looking for?" Narset asked, "You have to have some idea, or you wouldn't have come here." 

"It's a... bizarre situation, to say the least." Jace answered, "You see, someone very strange suddenly showed up in my home plane. Someone from Tarkir. A Khan, so she says, and-"

Narset flinched. She began to sway slightly on her feet.

"Is that bad?"

Narset opened her mouth, but the right words became caught in her throat and wouldn't come out, even as Jace felt her mind clutching onto the answer. He could always just plunge in and pull it from her, since she knew. But they both came to the same conclusion at the same time. 

"...I will show you." she finally spoke, "You will see it as I once did. But you must be careful. And do not say the word 'khan' in the presence of any dragons." 

Jace nodded, not willing to question someone who knew better than him what was going on. But none of this made sense. So little added up with what Alesha had told him, but at the same time, he was on the verge of finding the answer. He followed Narset as she turned back towards Sarkhan, who, Jace just realized, had been staring him down the entire time. 

"Uh. Right." Jace smiled awkwardly, "Sorry about the last time we met, I guess. It was. Complicated." 

Sarkhan's draconic face was difficult to read, but behind it the emotions were bright and clear. They burned with embarrassment and regret. Anger, not towards Jace but towards his former master. That was a relief to the mind mage. One less person in the multiverse that wanted to murder him and, better yet, one less planeswalker working for Bolas. He'd have to find out the details of that later. The dragon snorted heavily through his nose, finally turning his gaze to Narset. Jace could swear that those scaly features softened, and he dipped down, lowering his wings so he could allow the two planeswalkers onto his back.

"...We're flying?"

"Yes. Unless you would rather walk." 

Jace looked down at himself, prodding the soft middle he knew rested just under the breastplate. Walking slowly over even ground was one thing. Climbing a literal mountain's worth of stairs might just break his less than stellar constitution. He took a deep breath, and with Narset's help the two of them perched on the dragon's back. Sarkhan stayed low to the ground, but the great leathery wings unfurled and beat heavily, slicing through the air and, after a short burst of forward speed, carried the three of them up into the air, spiraling... away from the mountaintop.

Jace contemplated questioning why they were moving in the opposite direction of his destination, but as their altitude raised and they whipped through the air his stomach twisted into knots, drowning out the words. Looking down only made his gut lurch, so he gazed ahead and to the sides, watching as the mountain peaks passed. Occasionally they'd be joined by other dragons, great serpentine beasts with feathered wings that were white as the clouds except for the shock of red that streaked across their bodies. 

He remembered these too from Alesha's memories. They looked exactly like the dragon that descended on the khan's meeting, destroyed an entire way of life. And yet his two new companions were entirely unbothered by their presence. Narset still looked straight ahead, and Sarkhan even barked out happily at them, waggling his wings as they drifted off in their own directions. 

Something was wrong. 

Before he could think about it much more, they began to circle and descend, eventually landing at the base of a mountain that was very far away from where they'd started. Here there were no people, no sign of life, and as Narset helped Jace down onto the grass, he looked at her, confused. 

"Where are we?" he asked. 

"I said that I would show you what you are looking for," Narset said, already walking towards a tiny opening carved into the side of the mountain. Jace quickly followed her before she disappeared from sight, "And the truth of the khans doesn't rest with the Ojutai. In all of Tarkir, it is only here, and only our eyes will have seen it." 

"Oh." Into the darkness and stale air of the tunnel the two went, the both of them summoning their own lights to see in the winding pathways. Jace's heart started to beat faster the deeper they went, not from fear, but from excitement, the rush of uncovering forbidden knowledge. He could feel the same energy coming off of Narset. Even if her expression didn't change, he still felt her reliving memories of her own, the thrill and terrible wonder of what she'd witnessed in this archive. Would it be the same for him?

The door to the archive was still pried open from the last time Narset had been here, and they stepped inside. It was a nearly-empty, tiny room, with only Narset's old footprints and a crumpled, cracked piece of paper on the ground. 

"There it is." Narset said, gesturing towards the ruined scroll. Jace approached it, lifting it up and wincing as it flaked at the corners, whole chunks of it falling away. His hands trembled, and even though he couldn't read the words, he could see the panic in the handwriting. 

"What does it say?" he asked hastily in his anticipation. 

"It is a documentation of the Khanfall," Narset answered softly, reverently, "The moment that the broods of Ojutai and Silumgar descended upon the khans' meeting and put an end to the old ways of Tarkir." 

Jace felt his throat grow dry. Along the sides of the scroll were five symbols. The symbols of the clans that he saw in Alesha's mind. He lingered on the wings, the Mardu crest that had once flown proudly on their war banners. 

"Yeah, she told me about that," he croaked out, "But this scroll is ancient. How long ago did this happen?" 

"Over one thousand years ago." 

His blood chilled and his throat clenched shut. Impossible. It had to be. But it was true. The Tarkir he'd just travelled through was so radically different from what Alesha had known, and the only way was through a radical shift in time. 

Even if he could return Alesha home, everyone she knew, everything she'd known was dead. Who even knew what else had changed? 

Narset recognized the hollow-eyed look on his face. It was the same soul-wrenching revelation she'd gone through when she found the scroll.  But where hers was a glorious epiphany, he looked terrified, and it only made her more curious as to what this meant to him.

"We should leave," she broke the silence, "We can discuss more outside." 

"...Right. Yes." Jace's mind stirred with questions like a hornet's nest. But first things first. He rolled up the scroll as delicately as he could with his shaking hands, trying his best not to damage it any more than it already was. From his back he pulled a length of cloth and wrapped it up. 

"You should take it with you," Narset said, "It would be safest away from this plane. If it is found here, it will be destroyed." 

Jace couldn't help but smile slightly. Despite everything, it was nice to add a piece of forbidden history to his collection. He placed the scroll as gently as he could in his bag, and they left the now entirely empty archive. 

They stepped back out of the mountainside to a darkening sky, and Jace took a heavy inhale of the fresh air. He quickly noticed that it was underlaid by the scent of burning wood, and indeed on a patch of bare land a small campfire burned. The dragon they'd rode here on was also gone, replaced by the broad-bodied, long-haired man that was seated by the fire. He smiled and stood up to his feet when he saw them emerge from the cave, and rushed over to meet them. 

Jace flinched. A dragon approaching would have been less unnerving.

"I've made camp." Sarkhan said proudly, looking at Narset, "Did you find what you were looking for?"

"Yes. And it will be in safer hands from now on." she answered, looking back at him for a moment and flashing a smile before she wandered over to the fire. Jace followed, staring nervously at the rough-looking metal kettle that hung over the flames. He swallowed down nausea as he watched the steam rise from it, but sat anyway. At least he had plenty of other things on his mind to distract him from such unpleasant memories. He was spared from having to hear it whistle when Narset reached into her satchel and pulled out a few leaves, removing the kettle from the fire and dropping them inside to brew. 

"I'm not sure if I have enough-" Narset began, but was cut off as Jace dug through his bag, pulling out a tin cup. Thank goodness for being prepared for everything, even, apparently, tea with near-strangers. He really could use a drink about now, of anything. "Alright then." 

The rush of hot liquid, sweet and floral, brought Jace back to his senses, soothing his throat and warming his core. He took a deep breath, and with his stomach and nerves soothed he finally brought himself to speak again. 

"Alright," he began, "So what you showed me... well, it changes everything. I just wanted to find out how she'd gotten to Ravnica without being a planeswalker. I had no idea she'd been thrown forward in time too, apparently." 

"What is her name?" Narset asked. 

"Alesha, Who Smiles At Death. Khan of the Mardu clan." 

Narset nodded, "Yes, that was one of the khans present when they fell. The scroll claims that she escaped alive, though I've yet to find any records of what became of her afterwards." 

"From what she told me, she just disappeared off her horse and appeared right in the middle of Ravnica," Jace said, "I've ruled out ignition, but then what does that leave? Everytime I think I've reached the answer, more questions keep piling on."

"Don't worry about having too many mysteries," Narset said, "It means that you will always have a purpose. Always have something to chase." 

"Mm." said Jace thoughtfully through a sip of tea, quietly wishing he'd first met Narset under different circumstances. She vibrated on the same wavelength, and oh, the stones the two of them could overturn! 

Sarkhan, meanwhile, was frowning, glowering into the fire.

"...Do you know something about this?" Jace asked tentatively, carefully trying to avoid drawing the dragonman's ire. 

"The Mardu," he growled, "My old clan. Of all of them, they took the most pride in butchering the dragons. They would have driven them extinct, had they been allowed to."

Jace held his tongue, ignoring the very obvious bias in the face of a potential lead.

"Were there any stories or records of Alesha? Or anything at all?" Jace continued to prod. 

Sarkan shook his head. "No, because Alesha ruled the clan in a different time."

"Right, the khans had been struck from the records. I was hoping there might be some oral tradition that survived."

The dragonman gave a small, proud smile, "I meant that she ruled in a time where I was never born." 

Jace blinked, eyebrows held high.

"...Excuse me?"

That was the launching point of a conversation that went well until the moon rose high in the sky as the two planeswalkers detailed to Jace the twisted history of Tarkir. How Sarkhan had taken that encounter from the Eye of Ugin and used it to save Ugin's life, thereby rewriting the entire history of the plane. Jace's brain tied itself in knots; temporal dealings were always difficult to sort out, but if this plane's timeline had been tampered with in such a way, it may bring him closer to what caused this anomaly. 

Briefly, Jace's mind tuned out the exact words and wandered, hovering over possibilities of what could have been had Ugin remained dead. He had to stop, however, when he started to replay the Eldrazi situation on Zendikar. How the war could have ended much differently, and much more horribly. He held back a shudder. The spirit dragon may not be the most pleasant individual in the multiverse, but Jace came away with a new appreciation for the fact that he, at least, existed. 

The talking finally began to wind down, with Narset having gone completely silent about an hour ago, sitting with her eyes closed, but alert. It seemed a good time to take his leave.

"I think I have enough information now. It's very late, and I imagine the both of you need some rest. I know I do. Thank you both." he said, and immediately winced as a big hand gave him a few friendly slaps on the back. It was bad enough when Gideon did it, but for a few seconds, he sincerely thought he was in danger. 

"Thank you as well," the dragonman said, "Narset has been looking for new stories to share, and new mysteries to solve. I wish you luck in yours."

Jace laughed awkwardly, and stood to his feet, smiling even through pins and needles in his legs. He looked over at Narset, who still hadn't looked up.

_ Good night, and thank you, _ Jace spoke softly into her mind. Narset's eyelids twitched a little, but she didn't answer with her mouth. 

_ I'm glad I could help you _ , she answered, her thought-words flowing more easily,  _ And I'm sorry for going silent. I've run out of words for today, I think.  _

Jace smiled, and Narset followed suit.  _ I understand that. Words are hard sometimes.  _

_ Thank you. Not many people can wrap their heads around it. _

_ Is there a place we can meet up again? _ Jace asked. 

_ Tamiyo's story circle. I'm a part of it. I'd love to talk to you more someday. Especially if it's like this. _

Jace wasn't terribly thrilled with the prospect of returning to Kamigawa. But some time had passed since the incident at the Nezumi village. Maybe things would be different, be alright for once. 

_ I'll keep it in mind. I'll see you there, someday. _

Narset simply nodded, and went silent once more. And with that farewell, Jace took a few steps from the campfire and vanished, leaving no trace behind.

He did not look forward to what was about to come.


	5. Reduce to Dreams

Jace emerged from nowhere, onto the cobblestone street of some Ravnican back alley. He wasn't sure if it was his imagination, but for a few seconds he thought he heard the tail end of a peal of thunder that rumbled through the sky. Real or not, it did nothing to unwind the acid anxiety that coiled and slithered in his stomach. His home wasn't far away at all, only a few blocks, but his roiling mind stretched the trip into an eternity.

Maybe he should have sent Gideon, he thought to himself. Gideon may not have had his talent for ferreting out the unknown, but his ability to deliver devastating news in a way that wouldn't instantly crush someone's soul would have been invaluable in this situation. Jace rehearsed as he walked, rearranging the words in his head over and over. But no matter what, they always turned sour and tasteless. 

The truth was, there was no easy way to tell someone that their entire way of life had died. 

The discussion, far away from the prying ears of the Dragonlords, had put into perspective just how dramatic the change really was. One thousand years is a very long time. And as much as Sarkhan insisted that it was a change for the better, it didn't change the fact that the Mardu were no more after that day. Even if they hadn't been directly subjugated, following their monstrous Dragonlord Kolaghan still led them down a ruinous path. 

Jace remembered the pride in Alesha's thoughts. The Mardu may have been raiders, but her dignity and honor still shone bright. Even just being in her head, it was hard to not find her loyalty infectious. How could he tell her that had been stripped away? That her clan now was as mindless and destructive as a natural disaster, razing the land and everyone in their way, even turning on their own if the mood struck? 

He entertained the idea of simply not telling her. Maybe he could keep up a facade of searching for the truth forever. Just one more day, I'm so close to the answer, every day for the rest of both of their lives. But it would have just been prolonging the inevitable, and he hadn't gone through all this trouble of uncovering the truth just to bury it and let it eat away at him inside. 

After what seemed like hours, he was face to face with the door of his estate. He drew a deep breath, which struggled to press out a chest tightened by nerves, and let it out as he opened the door. Here goes nothing. 

It took him a little while of searching to find where Alesha had settled, and every passing minute made his pulse louder in his ears. A rhythmic thumping sound revealed her location; a fist driving hard into a sandbag. Of course. Despite Gideon's constant attempts at coaxing Jace into learning how to throw a punch, the big man was still the only one who used the little makeshift gym he'd set up in the estate. Gideon must be over the moon at the prospect of having a proper workout partner. 

"Good form!" he heard Gideon shout happily from down the hall, "Let's see a few more." 

He turned into the gym to the sight of Alesha bearing down on the sandbag, teeth bared as she threw punch after fierce punch, sending the thing swinging back further and further on its chain. Gideon nodded his head proudly, and she finally pulled away, breathing hard and turning towards him with a big smile on her face. 

"Very impressive," he said, clapping his big hands a few times together, "Though from what you've told me, that's to be expected."

Alesha puffed out her chest, "We Mardu usually do battle with weapons, of course," she said through her panting, "But you never know when you'll be caught unarmed." 

Jace's expression screwed unpleasantly, waiting for himself to be noticed and silently hoping he wouldn't be. He didn't get his wish. Gideon saw him in the doorway and his eyes widened.

"Jace! You're back!" he said, relieved. He approached in that slow and measured way he'd learned to do towards Jace, who rewarded him as best he could with a small, awkward smile. "How did it go?" 

The mind mage coughed slightly, a bit overwhelmed by the smell of sweat and leather that permeated the gym. "Well, I certainly learned some things. We're... going to have to go somewhere a little more comfortable. It's important. Very important."

Gideon picked up on the shiftiness in Jace's eyes, and his own mood turned down sharply. 

"I'm going to assume bad news, then." the big man sighed.

Jace nodded, "It's not all bad, maybe, but-"

Alesha, seeing that the mind mage survived, raised her eyebrows and moved over, a swagger in her step. 

"There you are!" she said, "That you survived shows you're more resilient than I gave you credit for." Her grin still showed a few too many teeth for his liking.

"Heh. Well. I've been through worse, to be honest." He found himself staring at her fists. He'd seen what they could do to the sandbag. What would they do to his face when he broke the news?

"Don't waste my time. Can you return me home or not?" 

Jace breathed in heavily through his nose. "Both of you come with me to the library. I'll explain more there." Though Alesha tossed her head impatiently, the two followed, and they made the painstaking journey to the library, at the same table at which they'd first spoken. 

The mind mage placed his bag on the table gently, digging around in it until he pulled out the roll of fabric, silently praying to himself that it hadn't been damaged in transport. He rolled the scroll open as delicately as he could, and even then big chunks still flaked off onto the table, making him cringe. His calligraphy skills weren't exactly up to snuff, but he would have to do his best to make a reproduction of this, making a mental note to remember to do so.

Alesha reached out towards the scroll, running her fingers over the Mardu crest. 

"This is it." She said quietly, "Before we fled, even as the dragons attacked, one of the monks was still taking notes. Hah, idiot..." she said, trying to laugh, but her uneasiness leaked into her voice, "They couldn't take everything from us. Something survived." 

"Yes. It did." Jace echoed, "This is the only record of the Khanfall that existed on Tarkir."

"But it looks so... old." Alesha said, pulling her hands away when the scroll left dust on her fingertips. There was no putting this off any longer.

"Alesha, I have to tell you the truth," he began, "The issue of returning you home has gotten a lot more... complicated. And it might, at this point, be impossible." 

"What?" Alesha's eyes snapped up to Jace, and he winced as frustration started to stir in her thoughts, "What does that mean?"

"This document... It was recorded a thousand years ago." he said quickly, before he could change his mind, "I don't know how it's happened, but you've been displaced not just from your plane, but from time." 

The words hit Alesha like a dragon's claws around her chest, taking a few moments to really start to hurt. But, as always, she chose to fight against the coming pressure.

"You're-... You can't...!" Alesha stammered, "You're lying! You have to be! I don't know what kind of sick joke this is, but-"

"Unless I find a way to not only transport you through not just different planes, but different  _ times _ ... I'm afraid that... there's nothing I can do."

Gideon tried to rest his hand on Alesha's shoulder, but she jerked out of his reach, still glaring daggers at Jace. 

"You can walk between worlds! You work miracles! You can... You can..." she pleaded.

Jace simply stared back with the eyes of a man who had run out of things to say, his throat pulled tight. 

"I'm sorry," was his only answer, coming out as barely a whisper.

Her legs felt cut from underneath her, and she leaned onto her hands on the table, turning her gaze down towards the Mardu crest. 

"My people... did they survive? What are they now?" she asked weakly. 

Jace closed his eyes. "I... think it might be best if I didn't tell you. I want you to remember them as they were."

Alesha said nothing, trying her hardest to bite back the coming breakdown. But her body jumped with barely-repressed sobs, and the scroll beneath her grew more and more blurry in her vision. 

Her people, her way of life, her friends. All of them gone. Had they died out because they had no Khan to lead them? Or would it have mattered at all? 

For a moment, she wished she would have lived and died with them. At least then she wouldn't have to live with the knowledge that they would eventually be snuffed out by the ravages of time. That the dragons eventually won. 

But, regardless, she was here in this strange place. Alive. She and the scroll were all that was left of what once was. The glory of not just the Mardu, but all of Tarkir. If she had died, there would be nothing. 

She rose to her feet once more, though her face still turned downwards. 

"I'm sorry..." Gideon said, and this time Alesha allowed him to touch her, "Do you... need anything?" 

"I need some time alone. Just me and the scroll." she said, gathering as much dignity as she could. It was times like this that reminded herself how she had once became Khan.

Jace and Gideon both agreed, and silently left her alone in the library. 

Alesha carefully pulled the Mardu crest, already half-detached from the scroll, the rest of the way free. Finding an empty space on the large table, she set it down, finding her sword and placing it alongside it. 

She bowed her head and did her best to recite the chants of the woe-reapers, the silent prayer that the deceased would find peace and stillness in death. Along with it she gave a promise that she would never let the memory of her people die. 

She didn't know if this horrible ache would ever go away. But even if it never did, she would never simply lay down her life. She couldn't. She knew who she was, and who she would always be.

No matter what happened, she would keep riding.


	6. Memory's Journey

_Clang!_

Steel crashed against steel, and though Alesha did her best to hold back from her full strength, Jace still shrunk down underneath her. His untrained arms only barely held off her assault. Even though this was only a training bout, his heart still raced and his limbs shook. He thanked every god that his own sword was still in good enough condition to not break. Alesha, however, had a fire in her eyes that he hadn't seen since she'd arrived on Ravnica, feeding on the fear she'd set in him.

He didn't have much room to complain, because ultimately this had been his idea.

-  
Alesha had spent the last day wandering the estate like a ghost. It wasn't that she'd lost hope, but that, despite her bravado, she became more and more unsure of what to do with herself. A chill embedded itself in her chest, creeping through her thoughts until even the bright embers of her most cherished memory could do little to create warmth. But, as she told herself over and over, it was only a matter of carving out a new place. Whatever that may end up being.

But that didn't mean it would be a painless process.

Jace did his best to give her some space to sort out her thoughts and mourn properly, but he couldn't help but feel responsible for her suffering in some way. Another mistake. Even if it was a terrible truth that couldn't have been avoided, an acrid guilt ate away at him from telling her. Even worse was that deep down he knew it would have been the same if he'd said nothing.

He had a choice. He could spend the rest of his life stewing in missteps that may or may not have even been wrong. Or he could try to make a change for the better. At that point, any sort of action was better for the both of them than staying mired in regret and loss. And it didn't take long at all for him to remember that he and Alesha did have some common skill that he could break the ice with.

It took him some time of digging, but he found it; an old, plain-looking sword. His own blade, one that he'd barely used but was still fond of nonetheless. It was tarnished from time and slightly poor storage, but that was fine. He wasn't going to do any real damage with it. He stood up and went to find Alesha.

She was alone, sitting on the bed in the quarters set aside for her and quietly polishing her armor. She seemed to stare right through the metal, as if looking for something in the reflection.  
Jace knocked on the doorframe lightly.

"Uh, hello, Alesha. Are you busy?"

She looked up at him, her expression unchanging.

"No. Did you need something?" she said. Her voice was hard to read.

"Just wanted to check on you. Do you mind if I come in?" She shook her head and Jace entered the room, taking a seat at a desk. Alesha's eyebrows raised when she saw the sword in his hand.

"You have a blade?" she asked, surprised in a way that made Jace's cheeks slightly pink.

"Yeah... It's been a very long time since I've used it, but here it is."

Alesha reached out her hand, watching him expectantly. He handed over the sword and she ran her thumb along the blade, frowning.

"Dull." she said flatly, "You haven't cared for your weapon well. Though I suppose that doesn't matter as much here."

"I have other ways of defending myself, anyway." Jace said, "But I've always found the art of swordplay pretty interesting, even if I never did much of it myself." A ghost of a smile flickered on his face. Alesha soon matched, but her smile stayed.

"Is that so?" Alesha set the sword to the side, letting Jace take hold of it once more, and reached over to hold up her own. It was a clearly well-loved sword, covered in nicks and scratches from many battles but still shining in the light from the window. The hilt was slightly blackened in some areas, but red and yellow wrappings covered the marks. Etchings in some language Jace couldn't understand lined the middle of the broad blade.

"It's a lovely blade," Jace said genuinely, and Alesha's pride became tangible, pouring off of her mind and filling that empty space he could still feel inside her.

"It was made for me after I became Khan," she said, digging back through her memories as they rose to the surface, "Not an old blade, but in a way passed down to me. It was made after my father's, and his after his mother's..." her voice trailed off, thoughts turning bittersweet. Even sitting beside her, Jace could feel her reach inside herself and hold that shining memory close.

He almost said something, but decided against it. Not now. But maybe soon.

"I wouldn't mind relearning how to use this," Jace said, looking down at the sword. He'd been so focused on trying to change the subject he didn't stop to think if what he was suggesting was a good idea or not. But it was out there. May as well go with it, "And who better to teach me than a Khan, yeah?" He put on his best reassuring smile.

It worked. Alesha's eyes and heart lit up, and she stood to her feet, looking down at Jace as if appraising him. Her lips turned up into a cocky grin.

"I don't know," she said playfully, "A soft thing like you might break under even my lightest touches. This something you want to take on?"

"I'll do my best," Jace answered after he mustered as much confidence as he could. He quietly asked himself just what he'd gotten himself into.

—

He finally managed to escape from underneath her blows, the metal from both of their blades singing as they scraped against each other. Darting to the side, he parried another swing, long-buried muscle memory starting to return to him. Some fabric from her skirt fell to the ground from where he'd struck out. She barked out a laugh.

"Getting better!" she shouted, pausing while she caught her breath and measured her next move, "But you have to be faster than that!"

As she spoke, Jace froze. He still held his sword up, and even managed to ward off a strike or two, but the ripples up his body from the blade were becoming more and more distracting. His muscles ached and his chest suddenly hurt.

Her voice had sounded so different just then, filtered through clanging metal and good-natured jeering. For a few moments, she'd become someone else entirely.

Only a shock of pain jolted him out of staring into space as her sword nicked his bare arm. He yelped, dropping his own weapon so he could clutch his brand new wound. At least it wasn't deep, but blood still seeped between his fingers, staining his glove.

Alesha shook her head, frowning and unfazed by the sight.

"What's the matter with you?" she said, slightly harshly from the adrenaline, "Even a novice shouldn't have let that one get through. Are you even still awake?"

"I'm sorry," Jace said, shaking his head, "I... I think I'm done for now. Thank you, though..."

Alesha tilted her head. It didn't take much deducing at all to realize that whatever wound Jace held was more than just physical. She pulled free a cloth from her waist pouch and wrapped it around the cut.

"You shouldn't get discouraged," she said, "Injuries are to be expected when you're out of practice. Come on. Stand back up and we'll-"

"It isn't that... But I appreciate the thought." Jace replied.

"Then what is it?" Alesha found her voice growing softer.

"It's... nothing. Don't worry about it."

Alesha huffed, and sat firmly down in the grass.

"You're hurting about something," she said, "Sit down. You need to talk about it."

It wasn't an offer, but rather an order. Jace sighed, and settled down next to her.

"You don't have to do this for me. I shouldn't burden you with my problems." he said, staring down and counting the green blades. "Especially in light of everything you've been through."

"You've stuck your neck out for me in an incredible way, Jace," she said, "You owed me nothing, and yet you still did your best to help me. That is worth at least a little dialog, yes?" She smile, "Besides, life's too short to be crushed by worry."

Jace gave a short, bitter laugh. _Easy for you to say_ , he thought before he could stop himself.

"I was just reminded of the person who first taught me how to use a sword," he said quietly, "For a few seconds, I saw him. Heard him. It was like he was still here... You're kind of like him, I guess."

"An old friend of yours?"

"You could say that." Jace's eyes closed, "His name was Kallist." The name left his throat like broken glass, making his voice crack. "He was... well, he was great. Brought out the best in me. Was always willing to tell the truth. You'd be surprised how rare a trait that is, heh..."

"It sounds like you really miss him." Alesha said, carefully measuring her words in a way she wasn't used to doing, "Is he..."

Jace nodded, "And... it was my fault. I wanted to protect him, but..." He buried his face into his knees. "I'm sorry. I know it's stupid and weak of me. It's been years, but it still hurts. And here you are with fresher wounds and still going."

He jumped when Alesha put her hand on his shoulder and shook him lightly.

"Having emotions isn't weakness," she pulled him closer, "And your loss is no less meaningful than my own. What matters is what you do with it. He made you better, didn't he?"

Jace smiled between tears.

"Yeah. He... helped me. A lot." he let himself accept her affection, leaning against her, "I wouldn't have known what to do with myself if it wasn't for him."

"Like my grandmother," she said, warmth in her tone, "The kind of people we feel blessed to have known, even if our time was cut short."

"...Tell me about her."

"She was the strongest woman... no, person, I'd ever known." Alesha began, her own eyes starting to glitter as she sifted through memories, "A horsewoman of incredible skill. But... when I think of her it isn't so much her achievements in battle. I remember stories around the night fires, how much passion she'd pour into her recountings of battles. She taught me how to ride, how to shoot a bow." Alesha swallowed, "And... she always told me to be my very best. No matter what anyone thought."

Jace's heartbeat accelerated.

"...Maybe she didn't understand entirely what I was going through," Alesha continued, "Nobody could. It was something very different, but it was who I was. Who I still am. Even if it was hard for her to accept, she still listened. Understood."

This was it.

"...What about?" He didn't want to reveal that he already knew. His mind's eye was almost blinded as her shining memory came to the surface, like the sun's glare off a sword.

"...That I was a woman." she said, tone between cautious and confident, "I know that sounds strange, but-"

"No." Jace blurted, "No, I... I get it. I know what you're talking about."

Alesha's eyes widened.

"...You do? I didn't think anyone would. Even a lot of my clanmates didn't."

"I understand... B-because I'm like you."

She went still, stunned.

"You're... but... I thought I was... you're a..."

"Man. Yeah." he said quietly, "I'm just the other direction, I guess. But I get it."

Before he knew what was happening, both of her arms were around him, pulling him right against her body in a firm, almost crushing hug. The both of them went quiet, but there was nothing left to say. Neither one of them had ever met someone else like themselves, someone who understood the pressure, the wrongness, the struggle to assert to others who they were.

But here they were, in a multiverse that had conspired to bring the both of them together.

They had a few moments to enjoy that unity before the peace was broken by a pair of heavy boots stomping up the halls just inside. The large doors swung open, slamming against the outer wall, making the both of them jolt back to awareness. Jace could swear the humidity around him grow, and the air suddenly smelled of ozone.

He looked up to see an absolutely furious Ral Zarek. The storm mage's body crackled with white-hot arcs, and his stormy gray eyes were narrowed in a glare.

"How the hell did you get in here?" Jace snapped.

"Shut up." Ral growled. "You have a lot to fucking explain. _Now._ "


	7. Prophetic Bolt

Alesha was already getting back on her feet.

She didn't like the change this strange man brought to the air. Not one bit. His arrival felt far too much like the advent of a dragon tempest, the approach of Kolaghan's terrible lightning-breathing brood. It made her body tense and her teeth grit. She reached for her sword, and regardless of the circumstances she was ready for whatever would come surging from the sky.

"Explain what?" Jace followed suit, but his movements were more measured as he stood to face the storm mage, "I didn't do anything."

Ral gestured angrily towards Alesha, his eyebrows furrowed hard. She glared back at him, but stayed quiet, daring him to try and attack her.

"This! This right here is what we call an anomaly!" he said aggressively, "And believe it or not, you're not the only one who's noticed that this person isn't supposed to be here."

Jace felt like slapping himself. Of course. Project Lightning Bug; Ral Zarek's pilfered project that took note of everyone and everything that went in and out of Ravnica on a planar level. Zarek had his own baggage with his planeswalker nature, but that didn't stop him from sticking his nose into everyone else's. If there had been something unusual crossing the boundaries of the Blind Eternities, he would have seen it.

"I've been trying to get to the bottom of this myself, Zarek," Jace said, raising his hands palm out in a placating gesture, "I've already ruled out planeswalker, and-"

"No shit," Ral huffed, fidgeting with his gauntlet in irritation, "Other than your little trip to Tarkir, all of the project's results within the past few days have been anomalous. The tiniest flickers across the barriers of Ravnica. Wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?" He punctuated his words with a judgmental stare.

Jace sighed, swaying back and forth on his feet as he tried to carefully weigh what he should or shouldn't tell the Izzet mage.

"Look, I should have come to you," Jace said, "I get it. But it's not like I caused this. I did my best to try to set things right, but the situation is much more complicated than anyone could account for."

It didn't help.

"So then what?" Ral stepped forward and started to bristle again. The air became charged with his temper, "We just let some strange person who is very obviously not from here run around starting trouble? While the atmosphere goes haywire and Niv-Mizzet breathes a little harder down my neck about what's going on with the disturbances?" The clouds overhead grew grayer, matching the manic glint in the storm mage's eyes, "While even worse may happen to the plane you're supposed to be protecting? I find it hard to believe you're not involved at all in this, Beleren. With you jumping back and forth all the time, leaving your post."

"Ral, please calm d-"

"Don't 'Ral' me, Beleren." Ral snapped, "I have had it up to here with your bullshit."

At the sight of sparks around his body and the accusatory words pouring out of the strange man, Alesha couldn't take any more. She leaped forward and easily brought the man down onto the ground with a loud thud and a louder swear.  The clouds dispersed and sunlight burst down on them as the storm mage lost his focus. Steel buried into the ground inches from his head, leaving him able to do nothing but stare up at the massive woman who'd pinned him. His eyebrows were so raised in shock that Jace thought they might escape from his face.

"Get off me!" he shouted, starting to struggle and spark, "Beleren, call her off!"

Alesha laughed, squeezing at his wrists, drawing out a rather undignified noise from the storm mage. Electricity coursed through her arms and locked her fingers, but she held firm.

"You come into Jace's home uninvited and threaten him? Threaten _me_?" she said, teeth bared, "I've dealt with worse storms than you!"

"Alesha, please-" Jace approached slowly and cautiously, "Don't kill him. He's my friend. Sort of."

" _Sort of?_!" Ral turned his glance towards Jace, but the mind mage raised his hands in a half-shrug.

"Are you going to deny that things have been kind of complicated between us?"

Ral sighed, going loose underneath Alesha. The static charge dispersed into the air, rendered inert.

"I guess not." he admitted.

"What kind of friend would come in and threaten to murder you?" Alesha said, still glaring down at Ral.

"The kind that lets his temper get the better of him a little too often. Isn't that right?" Jace kneeled down beside the Izzet mage, tilting his head chidingly. Ral's face was red with embarrassment and unresolved anger.

"You're not the only one under a lot of pressure, Jace." Ral said quietly.

"Don't 'Jace' me, Zarek."

"Oh, shut up." Ral rolled his eyes, "Are you going to let me go now or not? We can talk things over a bit more civilly, I guess."

"Fine," Alesha said harshly, "But you threaten us again and I'll show you what a real tempest can do."

Ral had no idea how to respond to a comment like that, not sure whether to be intimidated or unimpressed. But he couldn't complain, as it meant that he could finally sit up. The woman still watched him like a hawk, which did nothing to soothe the nerves that Jace could tell were still seething under his skin.

"Sure, whatever." Ral sat up as Alesha released him, rubbing his wrists and frowning, "So what do we do now?"

"You're not taking her." Jace said, surprisingly firmly.

"I can't leave, even if I wanted to," Alesha added, voice tender with sore memories, though she didn't keep that tone for long, "And I refuse to lay down my life to _you_.”

"Fine." Ral conceded, running his hands through his white-streaked hair, "I'll meet you halfway on this. Both of you come back with me to my place. I'll run some tests on you to see if you're the direct cause of the disturbances. You might just be a side effect."

"And if I'm not?" Alesha glowered down at him, daring him to answer. Ral shrugged.

"We figure things out from there. For whatever reason, Beleren's attached to you, and there's only so much I can say no to the Guildpact. Who knows, there might be a way to reverse it, or stop it, or whatever. I just need more information." It was his turn to look at Jace accusingly, "And we could have gotten started on that earlier if _someone_ had come to the one person on this plane who had the equipment and know-how to get that information." Every word of that sentence turned his mouth up further into a smile.

Jace sighed, "Let's just go already."

* * *

Ral Zarek's home was, to Jace, a terrifying and disgusting place.

It was a small apartment attached to a laboratory in an Izzet-controlled neighborhood, a place where a few misfires and explosions wouldn't be noticed too much. There seemed to only be room for Ral to apparently eat and sleep, as every available surface was piled high with spare parts, wires, and tools. Half-finished machinery buzzed and clicked from every angle. The storm mage's living space mirrored his mind; chaotic and whirling, littered with ideas and noise. Nothing had a place, but he felt right at home in the middle of the madness.

Jace couldn't say the same thing for himself. He wrung his hands, trying to resist the urge to sort things into the order they begged him to put them.  Alesha, however, seemed insatiably curious, looking over the scattered gold-like metal and wondering what anvil and hammer could have twisted them into such intricate shapes.

"Careful what you touch in here," Ral warned, "Some of the projects might be live. I'd be fine-" he pat his gauntlet proudly, "But it’ll give you a nasty shock, if not kill you."

Jace felt his hairs stand on end, unsure if it was from the charge in the air or his nerves.

Ral led the two into the lab area proper, almost as big as the entire apartment itself and just as cluttered. He dug through what looked to Jace like a random assortment of scrap, tossing things this way and that until he pulled free a small, brassy device. It twisted around itself, its various pieces bound by the same golden material as his gauntlet, with one needle-like point jutting out from the side. Taking some clips, he attached it to some large, boxy machine that held a small pen point to a sheet of paper which was etched with arcane markings that only made sense to the storm mage.

"Alright, so this will be pretty painless if you stay still," he said, gesturing for Alesha to stand in front of him, which she did begrudgingly, "This device picks up the same kind of energy that 'walkers give off when they travel. All I need to do is to sweep this thing around you a bit and see what it picks up. Easy, right?"

"Just get this over with," Alesha said sharply, but Ral was too focused to pay much mind. The little sensor clicked rhythmically as he swept it back and forth over her body, his eyes occasionally darting over as the pen twitched up and down, recording the results on the paper.

Jace, meanwhile, found himself wandering, especially when he noticed a desk in the corner behind a curtain. He would have completely passed it over had he not noticed a bit of metal poking out from behind it, something that certainly didn't belong on this plane.

It was a shining golden color, like the mizzium Ral often worked with, but twisted into intricate and probably unnecessary filigree patterns. Immediately the word 'Kaladesh' came to mind, the piece a dead ringer for the plane's vibrant sense of style. Making sure that Ral was still busy with his tests, he crept closer until he entered the curtained-off area.

His suspicions were quickly confirmed as he was met with yet more filigree, various pieces stacked on top of a large desk, though Jace couldn't begin to tell what they were for. Resting in the corner was a machine much like the one he was using to record what he picked up from Alesha, only larger; Jace guessed that this must be the measurement device for Project Lightning Bug, judging by the tangle of wires that disappeared into a hole in the wall.

Ral having pieces from Kaladesh was surprising, but not really cause for concern. Ral was, ultimately, an artificer, and Jace knew that if there was anywhere in the multiverse the reluctant planeswalker would want to visit regularly, it was that bastion of creativity and progress. No, there were two other things behind the certain that bothered him more.

The first were some other strange parts, neither from Ravnica or Kaladesh. They were dull gray, even black in places, and jutted in strange, almost disturbingly-organic angles.

The second was a book, a leatherbound journal, a tarnished bronze insignia on its cover. A long red ribbon marked a place within it. Jace lifted it up as quietly as he could and opened it to the marked page. Inside were sketches of what looked to be schematics, though the neat handwriting suggested that much of what was being drawn out was theoretical.

Jace felt his throat grow painfully dry as he kept reading. Theoretical or not, the notes still made his heart race with the possibilities.

They were notes about planeshifting technology.

This was not Ral's handwriting, or that of anyone he recognized. Then who wrote this to begin with? And why would Ral have this? Jace couldn't imagine Ral would be thrilled at all with the idea of tampering with planeshifting, given that he didn't even like using his own inborn talent.

He barely even noticed when a small note slipped out a few pages ahead of the bookmark and fluttered down onto the desk. His hands shaking slightly, Jace picked it up and read it.

 _You may be able to use this_ , it read, in a neat but clinical handwriting that gripped around Jace's throat like a set of claws, though he couldn't articulate why, _Don't worry about the metal, it's been cleaned and is ready for repurposing._

What the hell was Ral Zarek doing?

"Alright, finished." Ral said from outside the curtain, "And I don't really see anything unusual on you. Nothing stands out from the background level. So I guess you're no different from anyone else on the plane." He placed the sensor to the side, "Hey, Jace! Congrats, your new friend gets... to... Jace?"

Jace's heart nearly stopped, but before he could shove the note back inside and escape, Ral yanked the curtain out of the way.

"What the _hell,_ Beleren?" he growled, "What made you think that you could just snoop around like this?"

It was Jace's turn to bristle, and he reached out with that dangerous mind of his, holding Ral's in a tight grip that made the storm mage falter and rub his forehead.

"What is this." he asked tightly, sweeping his hand over the pieces that littered the desk.

"Those... That's none of your business..." he stammered out, struggling to keep his focus as Jace tightened those psychic claws around his brain. The mind mage could feel the panic that roiled in his thoughts, the distinct terror that something terrible was about to be revealed, a stab of guilt in his stomach.

"Tell me what you've been doing or I'll pull it out of your head, Zarek. You know I can." his eyes glowed fiercely and he stepped forward, sweeping his hood back over his head. For a man that was almost a foot shorter than him, Ral thought, Jace could be very intimidating when he wanted to be.

The storm mage swallowed, and Jace couldn't have predicted what he would do next. The impulse and ensuing action struck before Jace could react, and Ral darted forward, grabbing the journal and vanished into thin air, leaving behind only a rush of rain and ozone. The needle on the sensor behind him jumped.

Jace's mind gripped into empty air, and he reeled for a moment before he realized what had happened.

Ral had planeswalked.

It was then he noticed Alesha standing outside the curtain again, looking as though she was ready to restrain the Izzet mage once more before he disappeared.

"Where did he go?" she said, her eyes darting back and forth.

"He left, just like I can," Jace said hastily, "Go back to the estate and tell the others that we have a situation with Ral Zarek and they need to be ready, possibly for a fight. They’ll know what to do. I'll have more information later, but I have to go find him before his trail goes cold."

Alesha didn't need any more explanation to understand. This was a situation where action had to be taken quickly, and she answered only with a confirming nod before she turned away, rushing out of the lab and out the door.

Jace took a deep breath, trying to steady his nerves for the coming conflict and himself faded into the Blind Eternities, adding his own rain to the phantom shower.


	8. Castigate

In the space between spaces, Jace followed the trail as quickly as he could. Whether through inexperience or carelessness, Ral did nothing to hide himself the Blind Eternities, his path streaking through the aether like white-hot lightning. Tracking him was only a matter of seeing where that bright line suddenly stopped.

 _There!_ It veered off and in a burst of thunder that rippled through nothing, vanished. Still locked onto his spark, Jace turned sharply, careful to land in the same area.

Spiral clouds twisted through the blue sky overhead and the din of chatter soon flooded his ears from the number of brightly-dressed people walking through the busy city streets. Mechanical creatures, big and small, strode alongside the populace, winding between the ornate buildings.

Well, if the storm mage wanted to hide, right in the middle of Ghirapur was a great place to do so, where his Izzet colors and metal equipment wouldn't stand out. Anyone else likely would have lost sight of him, but Jace was too quick, ferreting past the pervasive optimism of the citizenry and the wispy bliss of passing Aetherborn to find the one mind gripped with panic. Sure enough, there Ral was, trying to squeeze his way into a crowd observing some sort of demonstration of a new invention.

Despite his best efforts to be stealthy, the moment Ral felt Jace's mind prod against his own, he only took a second to turn and yelp in surprise before he planeswalked once more, leaving a number of people muttering baffled questions at each other. Jace followed before anyone noticed that he'd even arrived.

The chase continued through several planes, tumbling into the wild grass of Zendikar and catching him trying to flee into the woods and causing a panic in the middle of some small Innistradi hamlet. Each time Ral walked back into the Blind Eternities, Jace could see him growing more sluggish and labored, his trail flickering and faint. This had to be such a strain on his body and mana capabilities, so why was he going through all this trouble to hide this?

Jace followed Ral's spark to Kamigawa, waist-deep in water, looking down at the storm mage who laid helplessly face down in a rice paddy.

He sighed and turned him before he drowned. Ral groaned, looking blearily up at Jace with unfocused eyes. He clutched the journal to his chest still, but it constantly threatened to slip back into the water.

"You didn't think this through, did you?" Jace said, reaching down and pulling the journal from Ral's weakened grip. He frowned at how waterlogged the pages were, but luckily for him, there was a simple magical fix. One couldn't maintain a library without learning a few tricks to salvage wet books, after all.

"Shut up..." the storm mage protested, but his strength had been severely drained. He managed to drag himself back to dry land before falling down onto his back and facing the overcast sky, palms to his face as he massaged his aching head.

"A little too out of practice to try that little gambit," Jace waded out and sat next to Ral's prone form, "It's easy to forget just how hard planeswalking is on your body. Kind of surprised you didn't get stuck in the Eternities."

"Now isn't the time to rub it in." Ral turned his body, facing away from Jace and the sunlight that was aggravating his growing migraine.

"I think it is," The mind mage opened the journal and skimmed through the pages idly, himself having to regain his bearings, even if he wasn't quite as drained as Ral, "And I think you should start explaining why the hell you're experimenting with this kind of thing. What happened to not wanting Niv-Mizzet to find out about other planes?"

"Wasn't my idea." Ral grunted, "I think you may have noticed by now that the journal isn't mine."

"Then whose is it, and why do you have it?"

Ral shifted his shoulders, "Some planeswalker named Venser. Never met him. Probably dead by now, judging by some of the events he describes. Guy who gave me the journal sure seems fond of him, though. Guess I can't blame him. There's a lot of fascinating things in there, and whoever this Venser was, he was a very talented artificer. But hell, you could see that for yourself."

"So someone gave you the journal? Why?"

Ral sighed, "I don't know how it happened, but I guess word about Project Lightning Bug got out into the Multiverse somehow. They were very impressed with my work and wanted to observe... Heh. Before I knew it I had a benefactor."

Jace's eyes narrowed. "A benefactor?"

"Yeah... At first it seemed like a pretty good deal. They just wanted to watch me work and judge my skills, and... well. At the time, I guess I just wanted the recognition. Hey, if Niv-Mizzet wasn't going to give it to me, maybe I could find it elsewhere."

"So you took up planeshifting research." Jace said flatly.

"It wasn't like that at first. It started with observation. But soon they started pushing me, first by commissioning smaller versions of the sensors I build for the Project. Simple enough, I guess. But then they started taking it further. They'd bring parts and tell me to use them, and I ended up having to make my Project do things it was never really meant to do. It culminated in the journal. That was… I think roughly a month ago."

Jace's body grew painfully tight as he put the pieces together in his head.

"Who has been putting you up to this?" he asked firmly.

Ral started to fidget, "My, uh... benefactor hasn't told me his name. I just know his little errand boy. Creepy guy, really. Managed to make a prosthetic arm out of raw etherium. One hell of a temper. Some recent incident on Kaladesh got him all pissed o-"

"You _idiot_!" Jace snapped, shocking the storm mage out of his train of thought.

"Wh-"

"No, you shut your mouth." Rather suddenly Ral felt a psychic hand grip around his brain, threatening to crush the life out of him if he moved. Looking up, he could see Jace trembling, his eyes wide like he'd just seen a ghost. "You have no idea, do you? The kind of shit you're in?"

"Jace, calm down and let me fini-"

"No! There is no calming down from this." Jace's eyes blazed blue, staring the storm mage right into the ground, "Nothing about _any_ of that struck you as suspicious?"

"Well, it did, but-"

"There is no 'buts', Zarek! That little 'errand boy' is Tezzeret, and he's about as big a bastard as you can get in the entire Multiverse. He tell you what he was doing on Kaladesh? He was stealing projects to try to build a planar portal while working within an oppressive government."

"I don't see how that's my prob-"

"It _is_ your problem! Because do you know who _he_ works for?"

Ral stayed silent, but Jace could read the name clear as day in his mind. It took a lot to not give him a nice hard squeeze right there.

"You knew." Jace said darkly, "You lied to me about that, too."

Ral went limp on the ground, both under the pressure of Jace's anger and from his own embarrassment. He buried his face into the grass.

"I never thought it was going to get this bad, Jace," he croaked out, "I really didn't... I didn't think any of this would matter."

"Then what the hell did you expect? Just because Bolas knows how to stroke your ego just enough that you think you're going to become hot shit in the multiverse and everything would be fine? He's going to use you, and then throw you away the second he's done with you. And you know what?"

Ral didn't answer, but Jace, in an uncharacteristic motion, grabbed his face and forced him to look him in his glowing eyes. It hurt the mind mage, to make this direct contact, but he had to drive the point home.

"You're helping to give him the tools he needs to do the same to Ravnica."

He quickly dropped Ral's head back onto the ground, but just that quick glance revealed that the storm mage seemed on the verge of tears.

"...Project Lightning Bug's results have been off the charts for a month now... Ever since Tezzeret brought the parts and told me to implement them..." he said softly, his voice trembling, "I thought I had things under control..."

"Well, you don't." Jace said through a sigh, "But it's nice to see you decided to storm in and blame me for your mistakes."

"I'm sorry, okay?" he said, voice muffled by the grass as he once again buried his face away.

"For someone who went off to me about small minds, this was extremely short-sighted of you."

"I get it!" Ral reached up, threading his fingers through his hair and tugging in frustration. Jace could feel the storm of humiliation and regret in his thoughts, how much his heart ached at the thought of Ravnica befalling some awful fate from his carelessness, "Just... what can I do to fix it?"

Jace went quiet, mulling over the potential options. Every second of his silence drove Ral further into discomfort, until he'd pulled his face from the grass and was staring up at the mind mage. He wasn't about to wait for an answer.

"I could sabotage them," Ral said, "Like we did with Niv-Mizzet. Not sure how yet, but I could find a way."

Jace was caught off-guard by how suddenly Ral spoke up, but if there was anything Ral had over him, it was his ability to not overthink things. The storm mage grunted and pulled himself into a sitting position, trying to hold himself straight and confident even as his limbs still trembled slightly.

"That's a good start," Jace said, "Disrupting them from the inside. But just like then, I hope you don't think you're going to be doing this alone."

Ral scoffed, "I'm not stupid. I've already lied straight to the face of one millenia-old dragon, I know how it goes." he shook his head, "I'm not about ready to commit suicide."

"Good," Jace said, "But I need to make sure that you're going to stay loyal to us, even when the heat is on."

"...'Us?' Isn't it just going to be the both of us?"

Jace turned his eyes to Ral, turning his eyebrows slightly upwards as the idea fully formed itself in his head. Even though it was the right course of action, the mental image was still a very strange one.

"I'm going to get my friends to help." he said, trying to sound dignified, "The Gatewatch."

Ral snorted, "The what? Is that what your little planeswalker gang calls itself?"

"We've accomplished some pretty amazing things," Jace said, growing defensive, "You'd be surprised what you can do when you stop trying to take everything into your own hands."

"...What are you getting at?"

Jace got back up to his feet, and held out his hand to pick Ral back up to his. The storm mage accepted, though he almost brought Jace down with him once more. With a clear plan set and his mind once more in order, being on this plane made him slightly uneasy. He took a moment to look around, wondering if anyone saw him or, worse, would recognize him.

"Once you feel up to it, we'll go back to Ravnica and I'll explain further." Jace asserted, "Just know that as long as you work with us, you'll be protected. You'll have taken some real steps to protect your home," His tone lightened, and, much to the storm mage's surprise, Jace gave him a smile. "And I really think someone with your skills and passion would fit in well with us."

Ral's eyebrows shot straight up, mouth held tight. He bounced uncomfortably in some cramped space between flattered and eager, and wanting no part of this. But what choice did he have?

What's more, Jace seemed to genuinely value his presence. Hm.

He took a breath and answered, trying to ignore the fluster in his thoughts and the slight warmth in his face.

"Fine," Ral said, "I'll do whatever you say. For Ravnica."

Jace's smile grew.

"That's what I thought."


	9. Oath of Ral

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Sorry for taking so long. Had some writer's block. Wrapping up this plot point, anyway. I promise there will be more delicious Alesha action coming up.

Thunder pealed through the air overhead and uncomfortably close to Jace as the two planeswalkers returned to the streets of Ravnica, their aether and their wet clothing bringing down a tiny downpour where they stood. Ral shifted uncomfortably, looking around with a scowl on his face and silently praying to himself that their arrival hadn't drawn too much attention. Still, Jace could feel that underneath the uncertainty, a comfort sunk into the storm mage's mind now that he once more stood on his home. It was still here, and still intact.

What was harder to shake was the shame that he had put it at risk of being corrupted.

The two men dripped their way down the Ravnican alleys, and as the anger gradually ebbed from Jace's thoughts he found it replaced by a sort of pity. Ral did genuinely seem regretful. And, after all, the mind mage knew better than anyone how easy it could be to get roped into bad situations. The best he could do would be to hold his fellow planeswalker to his promise to make things right.

And what about Alesha? He knew she was strong and capable, and would survive just about anything. But it was hard to put aside the guilt of just leaving her right after they'd had such a powerful moment together, forged a connection that no one else on the plane may understand. No, he thought. She wouldn't want anyone to feel sorry for her. The best way to make things up to her would be to give her an important part of whatever plan they were about to devise.

"So. Where exactly are we going?" Ral finally spoke up.

Jace opened his mouth, but found himself stuck on the answer. He'd been instinctively wandering back to his estate, but in truth he had no idea if his friends would be there, or if they'd left, or scattered, or what. Surely Alesha would have made a beeline for there to warn the others, but who really knew.

"You have no idea, do you?"

"I mean," Jace stumbled a bit over his words, "We'll start at my estate, I guess. Gather the others and brief them on the... situation..."

His words began to trail off as something, in a gradual crescendo, started to break the gentle mental static of nearby thoughts of passerby. It was also a thought, bright and hot as a bonfire, and quickly growing in volume.

_I'M GONNA GET THAT MOTHERFUCKER._

Jace grit his teeth slightly, eyes growing wide.

Hello, Chandra.

"Chandra, please slow down...!" A physical voice followed that thought. Gideon.

Ral cringed so hard that Jace thought that he might just implode where he stood once he saw the pyromancer leading the charge that dashed through the streets, Gideon hot on her trail. She glanced down the alleyway and the two made eye contact, sparks jumping from her blazing red hair.

"Theeere you are!" She barked a laugh, "Thought you could sneak past? We've got you cornered!"

Ral held his hands up, resisting the urge to summon a downpour to douse the pyromancer's potentially-destructive approach. Unfortunately, this didn't do much to sway Chandra away from her course. She stomped towards him, the first wisps of fire dancing around her clenched fists.

"Can you _please_ just stay calm and let us explain the situation?" Ral pleaded.

"Someone bursts through the doors shouting at the top of her lungs that you're up to trouble? You expect me to just ignore that?" she growled, "Alright, Jace. Say the word and we'll take care of him!"

"He's, uh, right," Jace said eloquently, "We do have a lot to explain. But it would be helpful if you didn't pound his face in, if you don't mind."

Chandra stared at Jace for a moment, teeth still grit tightly. But eventually she relented, her fists and hair extinguishing.

"Then what was with the call to arms then, huh? Scared the hell out of us. We couldn't even find Nissa in time, and-"

"I didn't have time to send Alesha with the full details," Jace said, "It's... serious, but I think that instead of finding ourselves with a traitor, we have a powerful new piece of leverage."

"Krokt, how many times am I going to almost get beat up by a woman today..." Ral muttered to himself. Despite his better judgment, Jace tensed up when he heard this, his glance turning to the storm mage for half a second. Some defense rose itself up in his chest, a stream of justifications flooding their way through his mind, ready to put Zarek in his place about-

About what?

No. He didn't know, and he wasn't talking about Jace. How could he have been?

"Jace? Helloooo! You still alive?" Chandra broke the awkward silence that Jace hadn't realized was building, "Don't pass out on us before you start explaining!"

Jace shook his head a bit, resorting his thoughts and putting away his paranoia. There were more important concerns now.

"Right, yes." he said, "I guess... we're going back home again. We've got a lot to talk about."

He'd lost track of how many times he'd had to lead people back to his estate, and each time the herd of people following just behind his fluttering cloak seemed to grow bigger and bigger. But just as he was stepping into the front door, someone crashed into him, almost bringing him to the ground, with only Gideon's big body keeping him from falling.

Alesha.

She was just about to help stabilize him when she saw Ral, trying his best to look invisible. He couldn't escape her hawklike gaze, and could only give an awkward smile as she glared stonily at him.

"There you are, you traitor," she growled, "You have absolutely no shame, showing your face back here like this, allowing yourself to be captured. Here to beg for forgiveness?"

Ral felt as though his eyes would just roll back into his skull, but Jace cut off that gesture with an elbow to his ribs.

"Ow, fu-... I mean. I guess you could say that."

 From behind Alesha, an elf woman peered at the scene, her green eyes wide with confusion.

 "Oh, you're back..." she said softly, "I thought I was too late. Alesha said there was an emergency, and..."

 "Nissa!" Chandra piped up, "I thought we'd lost you! Eh, not really. There was a scare, but I think Blue Boy has a plan on what to do with our zappy friend here."

 Jace held his hands up. There was a lot of chatter going on around him, with Alesha still sniping at Ral and Chandra and Nissa clearly making eyes at each other, and it was time to break through it all.

 "I need all of you to follow me into the courtyard," he said, in what to him was a fair impression of an authoritative voice, but only just got the others' attention, "I'll show you what we're going to do with him."

 

* * *

 

 The courtyard was much as it was when Alesha and Jace had left it. In the meantime someone had come and gathered up their swords for proper storage, which they both silently were thankful for. The sun hung directly overhead, shining down on the Gatewatch and Alesha surrounding the storm mage. Ral couldn't help but feel slightly threatened with all these eyes directly on him. Not in danger, necessarily; it was hard to be intimidated by people when he stared down a dragon every day as part of his job, but he still felt uncomfortable there in the spotlight, with the one person who knew the exact nature of his transgression staring him directly in the face.

 He could tell instantly that Jace had put on an illusion, making himself taller, squarer-jawed, but at a moment like this he wouldn't dare call him on it. Jace stepped forward slightly, and took a deep breath.

 "You've done quite a bit of harm, Ral Zarek," he said. Was Jace able to do auditory illusions too? Ral wondered. He sounded bolder, more powerful. Clearly wanting to make a statement, "You have put your home of Ravnica in considerable danger, and as Guildpact, it is my responsibility to bring you to justice. Instead, however, I offer you the opportunity to right this wrong, and work towards fixing your mistakes and ensuring not just the safety of Ravnica, but of the entire Multiverse. Do you accept?"

 "Yes. I accept."

 "Raise your right hand."

 Ral's eyes narrowed, but as he tentatively followed the instructions he felt a tug at his core, something pulling on the mana bonds he could feel in the air around him. It was bright and warm, like the sun on his face. White mana. Hieromancy.

 "Now give an oath."

 "...An oath?"

 Jace gave a short huff at the moment being interrupted, and forcibly planted the general idea into the storm mage's brain.

 "Like that."

 "Okay, okay..." Ral took a deep breath. "I'll keep watch. For Ravnica. And the rest of the Multiverse, I guess."

 He half-expected Jace to tell him to do it again, but the moment the words left his lips he felt that warmth sink in and settle, deep in his chest. The air around his raised hand tingled and sparked with static for just a moment before going still, just as soon as it'd began. What he said was apparently good enough, and the others could tell.

 "Heh. Guess this is really happening h-" he was cut off when Chandra pat his shoulder startlingly hard, giving him a wicked grin.

 "Welcome to the team, sparky." she said. She may have been ready to tear his head off less than an hour ago, but in a way Ral was already beginning to sort of admire her attitude. He turned his attention towards Jace.

 "Okay, so what exactly do I do, now that I'm part of your little team?"

 Jace had dropped his illusion, but still held himself with a fair bit of dignity.

"For one, you answer to us. No matter what they tell you or do to you, you don't give us away."

Ral shrugged. Wouldn't have been the first time he lied for the sake of other planeswalkers.

"Easy enough. What else." 

"For now, just stay your course. Try to delay what you can, but gather information and bring it to us, got it? We'll protect you, but we're your first priority now."

Deception on deception on deception, Ral thought. But maybe this is where that rabbit hole finally would end. And if he could ensure the safety of his home, it would be worth it.


End file.
